This is Me Jack Vance (Or more properly This is I) – by Jack Vance
To my Christian friends, I hope your celebrations of the Nativity of Our Lord were uplifting, and serve to remind you that a better world awaits us all in glory beyond the reaches of time. To my secular friends, I hope you got a lot of loot for Xmas.
Speaking of loot, Santa brought me a copy of Jack Vance’s autobiography, which despite theovercrowded social schedule of the day (stockings upended at 8.00 AM, inlaws over for breakfast at 9.00, Mass at 10.00, friends visiting at 11.00, then driving to my relations at 12.00) I somehow managed to read the first 65 pages.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but to hear Jack Vance speaking in his own voice about his own life, I found fascinating. His ironic and erudite manner of speaking is unchanged, and parallels suggest themselves between the locations of his various adventures and those of his imaginary characters. The book promises to be not so much about shop talk (which might interest SF readers) but just about his life in general, which I personally think is the correct proiritization.
We spent the day with the family yesterday, amid jollity and good cheer, and brother-in-law and I both resisted the temptation to debate our political differences of opinion, to the general relief and comfort of the rest of the family. I should mention in passing that I have an exceptionally beautiful sister, and she married an exceptionally handsome man, and in due course gave birth to three daughters equally exceptional — but I see with eyes biased toward my own. Remind me at some other time to tell you my theory that hidden in among the normal Homo Sapiens Sapiens who hold dominion over the planet Earth, there lives among us (as secretly as the immortals from Highlander) a second and related species, Homo Sapiens Pulcherrimus, commonly called The Beautiful People. My sister and her family are members.
From Right to Left: Nannette, Lucy, Olivia, Grace. They are also straight-A students and star athletes.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
